Hamilton Journal News

Videos show Arbery roaming vacant home

- By Russ Bynum

BRUNSWICK, GA. — Jurors in the trial of three white men charged in Ahmaud Arbery’s killing watched security camera videos Thursday that show other people entering a home under constructi­on in the months before the 25-year-old Black man was chased and gunned down after running from the site.

They saw two white boys with bicycles walk into the doorless garage to drag away plywood. Jurors also watched a clip of a white man and woman strolling into the home at night, the man carrying a small bag in one hand.

And they saw Arbery himself wandering between the home’s exposed beams and along its backyard boat dock on five different occasions between Oct. 25, 2019, and Feb. 23, 2020 — the last time mere minutes before he was shot dead in the street.

Greg McMichael, 65, and his son Travis McMichael, 35, armed themselves and pursued Arbery in a pickup truck after he ran past their yard, five doors down from the unfinished house with no doors or windows. A neighbor, 52-year-old William “Roddie” Bryan, joined the chase and recorded cellphone video of Travis McMichael shooting Arbery three times at close range.

The three are standing trial on murder and other charges at the Glynn County courthouse in coastal Georgia, where Arbery’s slaying broadened a national outcry over racial injustice.

On Thursday, the jury heard prerecorde­d testimony from Larry English, who had installed security cameras inside the home he was building on the McMichaels’ street. English said he put cameras behind the house after learning children had been playing on his dock. He added more out front and inside when he discovered fishing gear and a cooler missing from a boat in the home’s large garage.

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